James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

Arrived at the church door, which is open, Mr. Crowl pauses and faces round, holding up his forefinger as a sign to the bearers to pause too. Then Mr. Crowl takes off his shiny hat, and lays the brim of it to his bosom, at the same time looking more grief-worn than ever, and as though his heart was now racked to the extreme of its power of endurance, and nothing short of pressing the shiny hat over it would save it from breaking. With his head on one side, that he may get a view of the mourners in the rear of the black load, he signs to them to take off their caps before they enter the sacred edifice.

This, however, brings matters to a momentary standstill. My father’s four friends seem taken quite aback at Mr. Crowl’s request, and regard each other sheepishly, and as though not quite knowing what to do. Perhaps they think of the short pipes in the pockets of their flannel jackets. Anyhow, they confer with each other in whispers, and after a few moments one of them beckons to Mr. Crowl.

“We ain’t got to go into the building, Mister, have we?”

“Of course we have,” replies Mr. Crowl, reprovingly.

“What! right in? Right where the pulpit and that is?”

“Come along; don’t talk foolish, man. You shouldn’t have come at all if you meant to act in this absurd way.”

“But are we ’bliged to go in, Mister?”

“You are not obliged,” returns Mr. Crowl: “still, having come here, as was supposed, for the purpose, and as friends of the deceased, it seems hardly”—

“Wery well, then; since we ain’t obliged, we would take the liberty of being ’scused, if it’s all the same to you, guv’nor. It’s a thing wot none of us is used to. Not out of any slight to you, Jim, nor yet to her; that you know, old boy. Suppose we walks round a bit, and waits for you over there, alongside the—the place. Whereabouts might it be, Mister?”

“The grave is number eleven-two-nine, over by the clog-maker’s wall,” replied Mr. Crowl, turning about in disgust, and beckoning the bearers to come on.

We went into the church, and we came out again; and that, as far as applies to this stage of my mother’s funeral, is about all that I know; for as soon as we got inside we were placed in a tall-sided pew, from which (although Mrs. Jenkins took my cap off) I could get a view of nothing but the ceiling. True, I could hear somebody talking in a loud voice, and now and then somebody breaking in, in quite another sort of voice, but what the two were talking about I had not the least idea. I was thinking all the time about “eleven-two-nine,” and adding up the numbers on my fingers, and wondering what that had got to do with it. I was very glad when the two voices ceased, and the old pew-opener came and unlatched the pew and let us out.

We didn’t come out at the door we went in at, but at a little door at the farther end of the church; and never having seen the inside of a church before, the view I got of it on the road amazed me exceedingly. I believe I was chiefly impressed by the immense extent of matting laid over the floor, and with the queer pattern of the candlesticks the beautifully white candles were stuck in. We walked as at first, Mr. Growl heading the bearers, and the black load next, then father and I, and then Mrs. Jenkins and the baby. Outside the church there was another stone-paved path, narrower than the first, but presently we turned off this and struck across a very hilly road, which must have been extremely trying to the eight legs under the black load. To legs of the length of mine, the hills presented obstacles so formidable that my father had to lift me over the biggest ones, till at last he found it more convenient to take me in his arms and carry me.

From my perch on his shoulder I was the first to spy our four mourners who could not be persuaded to come into the church. They were lurking behind a big stone monument, and close by them was a heap of ragged clay and a long black hole. Close by the black hole there was a man dressed all in white, without his hat, and with a book in his hand.

Presently we arrived at the black hole and the bearers came to a stand. Then, all unexpected, there appeared from among the tall tombstones four men in smock-frocks, with their caps all stained with clay, their boots cloddy, and their hands earthy, as though they had just come from a job of digging. They went straight up to the bearers (taking off their clayey caps and stuffing them into the bosoms of their smock-frocks,) and laying hands on the black load, lifted it off the men’s shoulders, and placed it on the grass. In an instant the bearers whisked off die grand velvet cover, and shook it, and folded it up with great care, and walked off with it, straightening their backs as they went. Then the four that had come fresh from digging took the long bare box in their earthy hands, and slung ropes about it, and lowered it into the hole before you might count ten.

Now, indeed, I knew all about it—about death and the grave, and never. The lifting of the black cover from the coffin had, as it were, lifted from my eyes the haze which even my father’s vivid explanation had not removed entirely, and I could see things, and hear and understand them, exactly as they were. It seemed to me that my mother was but just now dead, and that it was the men with the earthy hands who had killed her. If any one of our party felt worse than I did at that moment, I am sure they were much to be pitied; but I think none did. My father was the only one who might, but he had known all about my mother being dead ever since last Friday, and must have grown a little used to it. He knew, at the time of starting, that we were taking my mother to be buried, and could have been in no way astonished at seeing her put into the ground; but it was different with me: I had been brought, as it were, to witness her death—her sudden shutting out from life and the world in the bright sunshine, and a dozen people looking on!

It was no comfort to me that everybody looked sorry. I had seen at least two of my father’s friends looking quite as downcast, and even more dejected, when trade was slack; and as for Mrs. Jenkins, I had seen her cry quite as hard, and wring her hands (which now she could not do, having the baby) when Mr. Jenkins came home drunk. The persons who had most cause to cry were dry-eyed enough. My father did not cry. He, looked wretched enough to do it, but he didn’t; he only stood with his eyes cast to the ground, nibbling the peak of his cap and listening to the parson just as I have afterwards seen a prisoner in the dock listening to a very light sentence from the lips of a judge. I didn’t cry. I wanted to cry very bad, but my eyes only burnt and smarted, and the tears wouldn’t come. I seemed too full of thoughts pulling this way and that way, and baulking my tears, just as one might fancy the rain-clouds beat about by contrary winds, with no chance of settling to a down-pour. The baby didn’t cry, being fast asleep; but I don’t think this was Mrs. Jenkins’s fault.

The parson having finished his prayers, shut the book and went away, and the party broke up. Mr. Crowl wasn’t half so proud as he seemed to be at first, but walked by my father’s side, chatting quite familiarly. He showed us a short cut out of the churchyard, into a by-street in which there was a public house, and waiting about just outside were the four men who carried the coffin.

“Shall we go back to the house, or”—

Mr. Crowl finished the sentence by jerking his thumb in a polite manner towards the public-house.

“In here’ll do very well for me if it’ll do for you,” said my father, at the same time tapping his trousers pocket independently.

So the whole party, with the four bearers, went into the public-house, and I, still holding my father’s hand, went in too. As we passed the bar, Mr. Crowl nodded and whispered to the landlady; and before we had been in the parlour two minutes, the waiter brought in some beer, and some gin, and some tobacco.